The former Conservative cabinet minister and deputy Prime Minister, was left speechless after his wife Lady Heseltine rang during the corporation's flagship live political debate show.

The Tory Peer, a former self-made millionaire businessman, quickly recovered and joked about his blunder, which came during serious discussions about the government’s failed 4G sale, the economy and austerity measures.

During the tail end of last night’s programme, the Peer, originally from Swansea, Wales, had been attempting to explain why the deficit remained.

He told the audience at St Paul’s Cathedral: “The reason why the deficit is continuing is because the government has decided that it will not cut the health service… the welfare system is being preserved very largely intact, very largely intact..."

The peer’s mobile phone then started suddenly ringing to the astonishment of fellow panel members, before he pulled it out of his navy suit and tried to answer it.

“There is a telephone going off,” said the surprised host David Dimbleby, to loud laughter from the audience and panel members.

The Rev Dr Giles Fraser, a fellow panel member, then retorted: “It is George Osborne [the Chancellor]” before asking the former canon chancellor of St Paul's Cathedral asked: “Who is that. It is your wife. Is that your wife.”

The programme's "extra guest" on Twitter, who this week was Laurie Penny, a Contributing Editor for the New Statesman, also weighed in.

<noframe>Twitter: BBC Extra Guest - Heseltine apparently knows how to fix the economy, but not how to turn his phone off on live television <a href="http://search.twitter.com/search?q=bbcqt" target="_blank">#bbcqt</a></noframe>

<noframe>Twitter: Stefano Hatfield - Enjoyed <a href="http://www.twitter.com/hackneyabbott" target="_blank">@hackneyabbott</a> death stares for Peter hitchens on <a href="http://search.twitter.com/search?q=bbcqt" target="_blank">#bbcqt</a> almost as much as Michael Heseltine's on air call from wife Ann</noframe>

The Peer then returned to his serious answer, insisting he was “not going to be stopped”.

He said: “The fact of the matter is, the reason why the economy, and George Osborne’s budget therefore, is taking longer to sort, is because we are in the middle, as Vince [Cable, another panel member] has said, of a world recession that none of us have seen before. It is taking longer to sort out.

“It is simply dishonest, for any party to come and pretend there is a serious option. We have to sweat it out.

“But the extraordinary thing to me, in this relatively stagnate situation, is that we have got more people in work in this country today than we have ever had."

His views were challenged by panel member Diane Abbott, the Labour MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington before the pair argued about Lord Heseltine’s comments that the government was “cleaning up your mess”.

She added: “You do not achieve growth by making the sorts of cuts in public expenditure that this government has done.

"And for Lord Heseltine to say ‘oh the reason we cannot clear up the deficit is because we didn’t cut the NHS’ tell that to the people in north west London and Lewisham who are seeing their accident and emergency [departments] shut and their hospitals to close.

“That is just completely delusional to say they are not cutting the NHS.”

The Shadow Public Health Minister added that while there had to be cuts but not on the current “scale”.

Dr Cable had earlier argued that the government had been "deliberately flexible" when it came to the budget deficit and dealing with the disastrous public finances, which had been "painful and difficult".

"Getting out of this crisis is going to be very difficult," he told the audience.

The other panel member for the live show, which was broadcast at the London landmark, was Peter Hitchens, the author and Mail on Sunday columinst.